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Here's a quick tip to improve your empathy skills with empathy guessing.

Ask the Trainer: "A participant in our beginners' NVC practice group asked the co-facilitators if there was a confidentiality agreement that was typically used in NVC practice groups?"

Join Mary Mackenzie, Certified NVC trainer, as she offers ways to incorporate NVC empathy guesses, feelings and needs into everyday conversations. This approach is geared towards adding deeper connection to the natural flow of conversations. The technique has become known as Street Giraffe.

Trainer tip: The phrase “tragic expressions of unmet needs” is used to convey how often we do things that aren’t likely to meet our needs. It’s not bad, it’s tragic -- because it won’t help us meet our needs. Acknowledging this, we can then consider a different approach that's more likely to lead to satisfying results. Read on for three examples of where this may apply in your life.

Trainer Tip: Our particular needs and expectations in the moment, influences how we feel. So if you are feeling hurt, sad, angry, or disappointed, try to consider what your unmet needs are, and see if there are other ways you can get them met. Today, track how your needs affect your feelings.

Trainer Tip: "I often hear people say that someone did something because of a need for control. Control is actually a strategy that is often confused with a need."

Using her own and participants' examples, Inbal illuminates parents on where they might be struggling with connecting to their children's needs, especially in situations where the children are responding to the parent's request.

Join Mary Mackenzie, Certified NVC trainer, as she offers a simple approach incorporating NVC into everyday conversations. Her observation is that sometimes speaking NVC empath guesses of feelings and needs can feel un-natural or robotic. A possible solution is to slightly shift the way a person applies their NVC skills, focusing on the flow of conversation in a modern way. This technique has become known as Street Giraffe. Her short video is packed with useful ideas that are sure to become useful tools you can add to your repritoir.

Building your body and mind awareness can help you better regulate/calm your emotions.  Regular self-empathy will help you better regulate your emotions as well as increase your body and mind awareness.  If you are not aware of amygdala activation (fight/flight/freeze response), you will react instead of responding with choice. Use this eight-step process to develop your self-empathy/regulation skills.

By guessing our child's feelings and needs we open the door to understanding what's behind their behavior, and can better suggest solutions that meet both their and our own needs. In this way we build trust and their desire to seek us out in times of need. Expressing our own feelings and needs also allows us to help them understand the value in fulfilling tasks or requests.

Listen to CNVC Certified Trainer Dian Killian guide and ease you into a more natural expression of empathy. This is a three person exercise. Listen in and then give it a try!

How we treat ourselves when we fall short of our own ideals, desires and hopes can profoundly affect the quality of our lives. Learn how to identify your triggers and reactions, to mourn falling short, and to practice self-connection and self-empathy. 

Learn to speak NVC using your own voice and increase ease and flow in all your personal and professional conversations. This 7-session telecourse recording with renowned trainer Miki Kashtan is designed to help you integrate NVC into all aspects of your life by gaining fluency in your practice of NVC and by embodying the principles regardless of the words you use. This course is based on intensive practice and coaching with real-life examples from participants’ lives.

Ask the Trainer: "I am wondering what to do with a judgment that is expressed by someone about me. In these situations I can't find the unmet need they are expressing (other than perhaps significance)."

Ask the Trainer: "I have noticed that sometimes when I am in a story-telling mood I am usually trying to prove that I am right and once I connect with a need the urge to give all the information goes away."

Empathy is a form of attunement. Empathy is giving your compassionate curiosity by guessing another’s feelings and needs. Consider how you live or relate to each of these 12 essential aspects of empathy. Some of them mention how we can offer empathy without abandoning ourselves, how empathy isn't always the best response, and how "Empathy can be offered when you disagree with another’s opinion, memory, or perspective."

Conflict is a normal and natural part of life. To varying degrees, it happens whenever two or more people consistently spend time together. Resolving conflict effectively and peacefully, in a way in which all parties feel respected and valued, does not feel natural for those of us who grew up with punitive, adversarial, or avoidant approaches to conflict. Eric offers some tips for approaching conflict.